SECOND APRIL 



BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 
RENASCENCB AND OTHER POEMS 
SECOND APRIL 
ARIA DA CAPO: A PLAY 



SECOND APRIL * 



EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY 



NEW YORK 

MITCHELL KENNERLEY 

MCMXXI 



COPYRIGHT I92 1 BY 
MITCHELL KENNERLEY 



1*1 5 



> 






PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 



wli kb \$2\ 



9CLA624091 



ro 

MT BELOVED FRIEHD 
CAROLINE B. DOW 



SPRING I 

CITY TREES 3 

THE BLUE'FLAG IN THE BOG 4 

JOURNEY 17 

EEL-GRASS 20 

ELEGY BEFORE DEATH 21 

THE BEAN-STALK 23 

WEEDS 27 

PASSER MORTUUS EST 29 

PASTORAL 30 

ASSAULT 32 

TRAVEL 3 3 

LOW-TIDE 34 

SONG OF A SECOND APRIL 3 5 

ROSEMARY 37 

THE POET AND HIS BOOK 39 

ALMS 47 

INLAND 49 

TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG 5 1 

WRAITH 53 

EBB 55 

ELAINE 56 

BURIAL 58 

MARIPOSA 59 

THE LITTLE HILL 60 

DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON 62 

LAMENT 64 

EXILED 66 

THE DEATH OF AUTUMN 69 

ODE TO SILENCE 70 

MEMORIAL TO D. C. 87 

UNNAMED SONNETS PXII 97 

WILD SWANS 112 



SPRING 



To what purpose, April, do you return again? 

Beauty is not enough. 

You can no longer quiet me with the redness 

Of little leaves opening stickily. 

I know what I know. 

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe 

The spikes of the crocus. 

The smell of the earth is good. 

It is apparent that there is no death. 

But what does that signify? 

Not only under ground are the brains of men 

Eaten by maggots. 

Life in itself 

Is nothing, 

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, 

April 

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. 



CITY TREES 

The trees along this city street, 
Save for the traffic and the trains, 

Would make a sound as thin and sweet 
As trees in country lanes. 

And people standing in their shade 
Out of a shower, undoubtedly 

Would hear such music as is made 
Upon a country tree. 

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb 
Against the shrieking city air, 

I watch you when the wind has come, — 
I know what sound is there. 
3 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

God had called us, and we came; 

Our loved Earth to ashes left; 
Heaven was a neighbor's house, 

Open flung to us, bereft. 

Gay the lights of Heaven showed, 
And 'twas God who walked ahead; 

Yet I wept along the road, 
Wanting my own house instead. 

Wept unseen, unheeded cried, 

''All you things my eyes have kissed, 

Fare you well ! We meet no more, 
Lovely, lovely tattered mist! 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

Weary wings that rise and fall 
All day long- above the fire ! ' ' — 

Red with heat was every wall, 
Rough with heat was every wire — 

"Fare you well, you little winds 
That the flying embers chase ! 

Fare you well, you shuddering day, 
With your hands before your face! 

And, ah, blackened by strange blight, 
Or to a false sun unfurled, 

Now forevermore goodbye, 
All the gardens in the world ! 

On the windless hills of Heaven, 
That I have no wish to see, 
5 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

White, eternal lilies stand, 
By a lake of ebony. 

But the Earth forevermore 

Is a place where nothing grows, — 
Dawn will come, and no bud break ; 

Evening, and no blossom close. 

Spring will come, and wander slow 

Over an indifferent land, 
Stand beside an empty creek, 

Hold a dead seed in her hand.' ; 

God had called us, and we came, 
But the blessed road I trod 

Was a bitter road to me, 

And at heart I questioned God. 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

" Though in Heaven," I said, ''be all 
That the heart would most desire, 

Held Earth naught save souls of sinners 
Worth the saving from a fire? 

Withered grass, — the wasted growing! 

Aimless ache of laden boughs!" 
Little things God had forgotten 

Called me, from my burning house. 

' 'Though in Heaven," I said, "be all 
That the eye could ask to see, 

All the things I ever knew 
Are this blaze in back of me." 

"Though in Heaven," I said, "be all 
That the ear could think to lack, 
7 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

All the things I ever knew 

Are this roaring at my back." 

It was God who walked ahead, 
Like a shepherd to the fold ; 

In his footsteps fared the weak, 
And the weary and the old, 

Glad enough of gladness over, 
Ready for the peace to be, — 

But a thing God had forgotten 
Was the growing bones of me. 

And I drew a bit apart, 
And I lagged a bit behind, 

And I thought on Peace Eternal, 
Lest He look into my mind; 
8 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

And I gazed upon the sky, 

And I thought of Heavenly Rest, — 
And I slipped away like water 

Through the fingers of the blest! 

All their eyes were fixed on Glory, 
Not a glance brushed over me; 

"Alleluia! Alleluia!" 

Up the road, — and I was free. 

And my heart rose like a freshet, 
And it swept me on before, 

Giddy as a whirling stick, 

Till I felt the earth once more. 

All the Earth was charred and black, 
Fire had swept from pole to pole; 
9 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

And the bottom of the sea 
Was as brittle as a bowl; 

And the timbered mountain-top 

Was as naked as a skull, — 
Nothing left, nothing left, 

Of the Earth so beautiful ! 

' ' Earth, ' ' I said, ' ' how can I leave you ? ' 
"You are all I have,'' I said; 

"What is left to take my mind up, 
Living always, and you dead?" 

"Speak!" I said, "Oh, tell me something! 

Make a sign that I can see ! 
For a keepsake ! To keep always ! 

Quick! — before God misses me!" 
10 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

And I listened for a voice; — 
But my heart was all I heard; 

Not a screech-owl, not a loon, 
Not a tree-toad said a word. 

And I waited for a sign; — 

Coals and cinders, nothing more ; 

And a little cloud of smoke 
Floating on a valley floor. 

And I peered into the smoke 

Till it rotted, like a fog: — 
There, encompassed round by fire, 

Stood a blue-flag in a bog! 

Little flames came wading out, 

Straining, straining towards its stem, 
11 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

But it was so blue and tall 

That it scorned to think of them ! 

Red and thirsty were their tongues, 
As the tongues of wolves must be, 

But it was so blue and tall — 
Oh, I laughed, I cried, to see! 

All my heart became a tear, 
All my soul became a tower, 

Never loved I anything 
As I loved that tall blue flower! 

. • 
It was all the little boats 

That had ever sailed the sea, 

It was all the little books 

That had gone to school with me; 

12 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

On its roots like iron claws 
Rearing up so blue and tall, — 

It was all the gallant Earth 
With its back against a wall! 

In a breath, ere I had breathed, — 
Oh, I laughed, I cried, to see! — 

I was kneeling at its side, 
And it leaned its head on me ! 

Crumbling stones and sliding sand 
Is the road to Heaven now; 

Icy at my straining knees 
Drags the awful under-tow ; 

Soon but stepping-stones of dust 
Will the road to Heaven be, — 
13 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 
Reach a hand and rescue me! 

''There — there, my blue-flag flower; 

Hush — hush — go to sleep; 
That is only God you hear, 

Counting up His folded sheep! 

Lullabye — lullabye — 

That is only God that calls, 
Missing me, seeking me, 

Ere the road to nothing falls! 

He will set His mighty feet 
Firmly on the sliding sand ; 

Like a little frightened bird 
I will creep into His hand; 
14 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

I will tell Him all my grief, 
I will tell Him all my sin; 

He will give me half His robe 
For a cloak to wrap you in. 

Lullabye — lullabye — ' ' 

Rocks the burnt-out planjet free!- 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 

Reach a hand and rescue me ! 

Ah, the voice of love at last! 

Lo, at last the face of light ! 
And the whole of His white robe 

For a cloak against the night! 

And upon my heart asleep 
All the things T ever knew! — 
15 



THE BLUE-FLAG IN THE BOG 

''Holds Heaven not some cranny, Lord, 
For a flower so tall and blue?" 

All's well and all's well! 

Gay the lights of Heaven show! 
In some moist and Heavenly place 

We will set it out to grow. 



16 



JOURNEY 

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass 
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind 
Blow over me, — I am so tired, so tired 
Of passing pleasant places ! All my life, 
Following Care along the dusty road, 
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed ; 
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand 
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long 
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace; 
And now I fain would lie in this long grass 
And close my eyes. 

Yet onward! 

Cat-birds call 
17 



JOURNEY 

Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk 

Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry, 

Drawing the twilight close about their throats. 

Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines 

Go up the rocks and wait ; flushed apple-trees 

Pause in their dance and break the ring for me ; 

Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern 

And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread 

Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant, 

Look back and beckon ere they disappear. 

Only my heart, only my heart responds. 

Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side 

All through the dragging day, — sharp underfoot, 

And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs — 

But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach, 

And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling, 

18 



JOURNEY 

The world is mine : blue hill, still silver lake, 
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road. 
A gateless garden, and an open path: 
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. 



19 



EEL-GRASS 

No matter what I say, 

All that I really love 
Is the rain that flattens on the bay, 

And the eel-grass in the cove ; 
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach 

At the tide-line, and the trace 
Of higher tides along the beach: 

Nothing in this place. 



20 



ELEGY BEFORE DEATH 

There will be rose and rhododendron 
When you are dead and under ground ; 

Still will be heard from white syringas 
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound; 

Still will the tamaracks be raining 
After the rain has ceased, and still 

Will there be robins in the stubble, 
Brown sheep upon the warm green hill. 

Spring will not ail nor autumn falter ; 

Nothing will know that you are gone, 

Saving alone some sullen plough-land 

None but yourself sets foot upon 
21 



ELEGY BEFORE DEATH 

Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed 
Nothing will know that you are dead, — 

These, and perhaps a useless wagon 
Standing beside some tumbled shed. 

Oh, there will pass with your great passing 
Little of beauty not your own, — 

Only the light from common water, 
Only the grace from simple stone ! 



THE BEAN-STALK 

Ho, Giant! This is I! 

I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky ! 

La, — but it's lovely, up so high! 

This is how I came, — I put 
Here my knee, there my foot, 
Up and up, from shoot to shoot — 
And the blessed bean-stalk thinning 
Like the mischief all the time, 
Till it took me rocking, spinning, 
In a dizzy, sunny circle, 
Making angles with the root, 
Far and out above the cackle 



THE BEAN-STALK 

Of the city I was born in, 

Till the little dirty city 

In the light so sheer and sunny 

Shone as dazzling bright and pretty 

As the money that you find 

In a dream of finding money — 

What a wind ! What a morning ! — 

Till the tiny, shiny city, 
When I shot a glance below, 
Shaken with a giddy laughter, 
Sick and blissfully afraid, 
Was a dew-drop on a blade, 
And a pair of moments after 
Was the whirling guess I made, — 
And the wind was like a whip 

24 



THE BEAN-STALK 

Cracking past my icy ears, 

And my hair stood out behind, 

And my eyes were full of tears, 

Wide-open and cold, 

More tears than they could hold, 

The wind was blowing so, 

And my teeth were in a row, 

Dry and grinning, 

And I felt my foot slip, 

And I scratched the wind and whined, 

And I clutched the stalk and jabbered, 

With my eyes shut blind, — 

What a wind! What a wind! 

Your broad sky, Giant, 
Is the shelf of a cupboard ; 

25 



THE BEAN-STALK 

I make bean-stalks, I'm 
A builder, like yourself, 
But bean-stalks is my trade, 
I couldn't make a shelf, 
Don't know how they're made, 
Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant- 
La, what a climb ! 



26 



WEEDS 

White with daisies and red with sorrel 
And empty, empty under the sky ! — 

Life is a quest and love a quarrel — 
Here is a place for me to lie. 

Daisies spring from damned seeds, 
And this red fire that here I see 

Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds, 
Cursed by farmers thriftily. 

But here, unhated for an hour, 
The sorrel runs in ragged flame, 

The daisy stands, a bastard flower, 
Like flowers that bear an honest name. 
27 



WEEDS 

And here a while, where no wind brings 
The baying of a pack athirst, 

May sleep the sleep of blessed things 
The blood too bright, the brow accurst. 



28 



PASSER MORTUUS EST 

Death devours all lovely things; 

Lesbia with her sparrow 
Shares the darkness, — presently 

Every bed is narrow. 

Unremembered as old rain 
Dries the sheer libation, 

And the little petulant hand 
Is an annotation. 

After all, my erstwhile dear, 
My no longer cherished, 

Need we say it was not love, 
Now that love is perished? 
29 



PASTORAL 

If it were only still! — 

With far away the shrill 

Crying of a cock; 

Or the shaken bell 

From a cow's throat 

Moving through the bushes; 

Or the soft shock 

Of wizened apples falling 

From an old tree 

In a forgotten orchard 

Upon the hilly rock ! 

Oh, grey hill, 
Where the grazing herd 
30 



PASTORAL 

Licks the purple blossom, 
Crops the spiky weed! 
Oh, stony pasture, 
Where the tall mullein 
Stands up so sturdy 
On its little seed ! 



31 



ASSAULT 

I 
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound 
After a year of silence, else I think 
I should not so have ventured forth alone 
At dusk upon this unfrequented road. 

II 

I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk 
Between me and the crying of the frogs? 
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, 
That am a timid woman, on her way 
From one house to another! 






TRAVEL 

The railroad track is miles away, 
And the day is loud with voices speaking, 

Yet there isn't a train goes by all day 
But I hear its whistle shrieking. 

All night there isn't a train goes by, 

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, 

But I see its cinders red on the sky, 
And hear its engine steaming. 

My heart is warm with the friends I make, 
And better friends I'll not be knowing, 

Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, 
No matter where it's going. 
33 



LOW-TIDE 

These wet rocks where the tide has been, 

Barnacled white and weeded brown 
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green, 

These wet rocks where the tide went down 
Will show again when the tide is high 

Faint and perilous, far from shore, 
No place to dream, but a place to die, — 

The bottom of the sea once more. 
There was a child that wandered through 

A giant's empty house all day, — 
House full of wonderful things and new, 

But no fit place for a child to play. 

34 



SONG OF A SECOND APRIL 

April this year, not otherwise 

Than April of a year ago, 
Is full of whispers, full of sighs, 

Of dazzling mud and dingy snow ; 

Hepaticas that pleased you so 
Are here again, and butterflies. 

There rings a hammering all day, 
And shingles lie about the doors ; 

In orchards near and far away 

The grey wood-pecker taps and bores ; 
And men are merry at their chores, 

And children earnest at their play. 
35 



SONG OF A SECOND APRIL 

The larger streams run still and deep, 
Noisy and swift the small brooks run 

Among the mullein stalks the sheep 
Go up the hillside in the sun, 
Pensively, — only you are gone, 

You that alone I cared to keep. 



ROSEMARY 

For the sake of some things 
That be now no more 

I will strew rushes 
On my chamber-floor, 

I will plant bergamot 
At my kitchen-door. 

For the sake of dim things 
That were once so plain 

I will set a barrel 

Out to catch the rain, 

I will hang an iron pot 
On an iron crane. 
37 



ROSEMARY 

Many things be dead and gone 
That were brave and gay; 

For the sake of these things 
I will learn to say, 

"An it please you, gentle sirs, ' ' 
"Alack I" and " Well-a-day ! ■ ' 



38 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Down, you mongrel, Death! 

Back into your kennel! 
I have stolen breath 

In a stalk of fennel! 
You shall scratch and you shall whine 

Many a night, and you shall worry 

Many a bone, before you bury 
One sweet bone of mine! 

When shall I be dead? 

When my flesh is withered, 
And above my head 

Yellow pollen gathered 
39 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

All the empty afternoon? 

When sweet lovers pause and wonder 
Who am I that lie thereunder, 

Hidden from the moon ? 

This my personal death? — 

That my lungs be failing 
To inhale the breath 

Others are exhaling? 
This my subtle spirit's end? — 

Ah, when the thawed winter splashes 

Over these chance dust and ashes, 
Weep not me, my friend! 

Me, by no means dead 
In that hour, but surelv 



Wben this book, unread, 



40 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Rots to earth obscurely, 

And no more to any breast, 

Close against the clamorous swelling 
Of the thing there is no telling, 

Are these pages pressed! 

When this book is mould, 

And a book of many 
Waiting to be sold 

For a casual pennjr, 
In a little open case, 

In a street unclean and cluttered, 

Where a heavy mud is spattered 
From the passing drays, 

Stranger, pause and look; 
From the dust of ages 

41 



THE POST AND HIS BOOK 

Lift this little book, 
Turn the tattered pages, 

Read me, do not let me die! 
Search the fading letters, finding 
Steadfast in the broken binding 

All that once was I! 

When these veins are weeds, 
When these hollowed sockets 

Watch the rooty seeds 

Bursting down like rockets, 

And surmise the spring again, 
Or, remote in that black cupboard, 

Watch the pink worms writhing upward 

At the smell of rain, 

Boys and girls that lie 
42 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Whispering in the hedges, 
Do not let me die, 

Mix me with your pledges; 
Boys and girls that slowly walk 

In the woods, and weep, and quarrel, 

Staring past the pink wild laurel, 
Mix me with your talk, 

Do not let me die! 

Farmers at your raking, 
When the sun is high, 

While the hay is making, 
When, along the stubble strewn, 

Withering on their stalks uneaten, 

Strawberries turn dark and sweeten 
In the lapse of noon; 

43 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Shepherds on the hills, 
In the pastures, drowsing 

To the tinkling bells 
Of the brown sheep browsing; 

Sailors crying through the storm ; 
Scholars at your study; hunters 
Lost amid the whirling winter's 

Whiteness uniform ; 

Men that long for sleep; 

Men that wake and revel; — 
If an old song leap 

To your senses' level 
At such moments, may it be 

Sometimes, though a moment only, 

Some forgotten, quaint and homely 
Vehicle of me ! 

44 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Women at your toil, 

Women at your leisure 
Till the kettle boil, 

Snatch of me your pleasure, 
Where the broom-straw marks the leaf ; 

Women quiet with your weeping 

Lest you wake a workman sleeping, 
Mix me with your grief ! 

Boys and girls that steal 
From the shocking laughter 

Of the old, to kneel 

By a dripping rafter 

Under the discolored eaves, 

Out of trunks with hingeless covers 
Lifting tales of saints and lovers, 

Travelers, goblins, thieves, 

45 



THE POET AND HIS BOOK 

Suns that shine by night, 
Mountains made from valleys, — 

Bear me to the light, 
Flat upon your bellies 

By the webby window lie, 

Where the little flies are crawling, — 
Read me, margin me with scrawling, 

Do not let me die ! 

Sexton, ply your trade! 

In a shower of gravel 
Stamp upon your spade! 

Many a rose shall ravel, 
Many a metal wreath shall rust 

In the rain, and I go singing 

Through the lots where you are flinging 
Yellow clay on dust! 
46 



ALMS 

My heart is what it was before, 
A house where people come and go; 

But it is winter with your love, 
The sashes are beset with snow. 

I light the lamp and lay the cloth, 
I blow the coals to blaze again ; 

But it is winter with your love, 
The frost is thick upon the pane. 

I know a winter when it comes: 

The leaves are listless on the boughs ; 

I watched your love a little while, 

And brought my plants into the house. 
47 



ALMS 

I water them and turn them south, 
I snap the dead brown from the stem ; 

But it is winter with your love, — 
I only tend and water them. 

There was a time I stood and watched 
The small, ill-natured sparrows ' fray ; 

I loved the beggar that I fed, 
I cared for what he had to say, 

I stood and watched him out of sight ; 

Today I reach around the door 
And set a bowl upon the step; 

My heart is what it was before, 

But it is winter with your love ; 

I scatter crumbs upon the sill, 
And close the window, — and the birds 

May take or leave them, as they will. 

48 



INLAND 

People that build their houses inland, 
People that buy a plot of ground 

Shaped like a house, and build a house there. 
Far from the sea-board, far from the sound 

Of water sucking the hollow ledges, 
Tons of water striking the shore, — 

What do they long for, as I long for 
One salt smell of the sea once more ? 

People the waves have not awakened, 
Spanking the boats at the harbor's head, 

What do they long for, as I long for, — 
Starting up in my inland bed, 

49 



INLAND 

Beating the narrow walls, and finding 
Neither a window nor a door, 

Screaming to God for death by drowning, 
One salt taste of the sea once more ? 



50 



TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG 

Minstrel, what have you to do 
With this man that, after you, 
Sharing not your happy fate, 
Sat as England 's Laureate ? 
Vainly, in these iron days, 
Strives the poet in your praise, 
Minstrel, by whose singing side 
Beauty walked, until you died. 

Still, though none should hark again, 
Drones the blue-fly in the pane, 
Thickly crusts the blackest moss, 
Blows the rose its musk across, 
51 



TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG 

Floats the boat that is forgot 
None the less to Camelot. 

Many a bard 's untimely death 
Lends unto his verses breath ; 
Here 's a song was never sung : 
Growing old is dying young. 
Minstrel, what is this to you : 
That a man you never knew, 
When your grave was far and green, 
Sat and gossipped with a queen ? 

Thalia knows how rare a thing 
Is it, to grow old and sing; 
When the brown and tepid tide 
Closes in on every side. 
Who shall say if Shelley's gold 
Had withstood it to grow old ? 

52 



WRAITH 

"Thin Rain, whom are you haunting, 
That you haunt my door?" 

— Surely it is not I she's wanting; 
Someone living here before — 

"Nobody's in the house but me: 

You may come in if you like and see. ' ' 

Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,- 
Have you seen her, any of you? — 

Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind, 
And the garden showing through? 

Glimmering eyes, — and silent, mostly, 

Sort of a whisper, sort of a purr, 
53 



WRAITH 

Asking something, asking it over, 
If you get a sound from her. — 

Ever see her, any of you? — 

Strangest thing I've ever known, — 
Every night since I moved in, 

And I came to be alone. 

1 ' Thin Kain, hush with your knocking ! 

You may not come in ! 
This is I that you hear rocking; 

Nobody's with me, nor has been!" 

Curious, how she tried the window, — 
Odd, the way she tries the door, — 

Wonder just what sort of people 
Could have had this house before . . . 

54 



EBB 

I know what my heart is like 
Since your love died : 

It is like a hollow ledge 

Holding a little pool 
Left there by the tide, 
A little tepid pool, 

Drying inward from the edge. 



55 



ELAINE 

Oh, come again to Astolat ! 

I will not ask you to be kind. 
And you may go when you will go, 

And I will stay behind. 

I will not say how dear you are, 
Or ask you if you hold me dear, 

Or trouble you with things for you 
The way I did last year. 

So still the orchard, Lancelot, 

So very still the lake shall be, 
You could not guess — though you should 

guess — 
What is become of me. 
56 



ELAINE 

So wide shall be the garden-walk, 
The garden-seat so very wide, 

You needs must think — if you should 
think — 
The lily maid had died. 

Save that, a little way away, 
I'd watch you for a little while, 

To see you speak, the way you speak, 
And smile, — if you should smile. 



57 



BURIAL 

Mine is a body that should die at sea ! 

And have for a grave, instead of a grave 
Six feet deep and the length of me, 

All the water that is under the wave ! 

And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, 
Such as a living man might fear, 

And eat me while I am firm and fresh, — 
Not wait till I 've been dead for a year ! 



58 



MARIPOSA 

Butterflies are white and blue 
In this field we wander through. 
Suffer me to take your hand. 
Death comes in a day or two. 

All the things we ever knew 
Will be ashes in that hour. 
Mark the transient butterfly, 
How he hangs upon the flower. 

Suffer me to take your hand. 
Suffer me to cherish you 
Till the dawn is in the sky. 
Whether I be false or true, 
Death comes in a day or two. 



THE LITTLE HILL 

Oh, here the air is sweet and still, 
And soft's the grass to lie on; 

And far away's the little hill 
They took for Christ to die on. 

And there's a hill across the brook, 
And down the brook's another; 

But, oh, the little hill they took, — 
I think I am its mother! 

The moon that saw Gethsemane, 
I watch it rise and set; 

It has so many things to see, 
They help it to forget. 
60 



THE LITTLE HILL 

But little hills that sit at home 

So many hundred years, 
Remember Greece, remember Rome, 

Remember Mary's tears. 

And far away in Palestine, 

Sadder than any other, 
Grieves still the hill that I call mine,- 

I think I am its mother! 



61 



DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON 

Doubt no more that Oberon — 
Never doubt that Pan 
Lived, and played a reed, and ran 
After nymphs in a dark forest, 
In the merry, credulous days, — 
Lived, and led a fairy band 
Over the indulgent land ! 
Ah, for in this dourest, sorest 
Age man's eye has looked upon, 
Death to fauns and death to fays, 
Still the dog-wood dares to raise — 
Healthy tree, with trunk and root — 



DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON 

Ivory bowls that bear no fruit, 
And the starlings and the jays — 
Birds that cannot even sing — 
Dare to come again in spring ! 



63 



LAMENT 

Listen, children: 
Your father is dead. 
From his old coats 
I'll make you little jackets; 
I'll make you little trousers 
From his old pants. 
There'll be in his pockets 
Things he used to put there, 
Keys and pennies 
Covered with tobacco; 
Dan shall have the pennies 
To save in his bank; 
Anne shall have the keys 

64 



LAMENT 

To make a pretty noise with. 
Life must go on, 
And the dead be forgotten ; 
Life must go on, 
Though good men die; 
Anne, eat your breakfast; 
Dan, take your medicine ; 
Life must go on; 
I forget just why. 



65 



EXILED 

Searching my heart for its true sorrow, 

This is the thing I find to be : 
That I am weary of words and people, 

Sick of the city, wanting the sea ; 

Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness 

Of the strong wind and shattered spray ; 

Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound 
Of the big surf that breaks all day. 

Always before about my dooryard, 
Marking the reach of the winter sea, 

Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood, 
Straggled the purple wild sweet-pea; 



EXILED 

Always I climbed the wave at morning, 
Shook the sand from my shoes at night, 

That now am caught beneath great buildings, 
Stricken with noise, confused with light. 

If I could hear the green piles groaning 
Under the windy wooden piers, 

See once again the bobbing barrels, 
And the black sticks that fence the weirs, 

If I could see the weedy mussels 

Crusting the wrecked and rotting hulls, 

Hear once again the hungry crying 
Overhead, of the wheeling gulls, 

Feel once again the shanty straining 
Under the turning of the tide, 
67 



EXILED 

Fear once again the rising freshet, 
Dread the bell in the fog outside, — 

I should be happy, — that was happy 
All day long on the coast of Maine ! 

I have a need to hold and handle 
Shells and anchors and ships again ! 

I should be happy, that am happy 
Never at all since I came here. 

I am too long away from water. 
I have a need of water near. 



m 



THE DEATH OF AUTUMN 

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the 

marshes, 
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind 
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned 
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, 
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, 
Blackens afar the half -forgotten creek, — 
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and 

crushes 
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die, 
And will be born again, — but ah, to see 
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky ! 
Oh, Autumn! Autumn! — What is the Spring 

to me? 

69 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Aye, but she? 

Your other sister and my other soul' 
Grave Silence, lovelier 

Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her? 
Clio, not you, 
Not you, Calliope, 
Nor all your wanton line, 
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me 
For Silence once departed, 
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil- 
hearted, 
Whom evermore I follow wistfully, 
70 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and 

the four seasons through; 
Thalia, not you, 
Not you, Melpomene, 

Not your incomparable feet, thin Terpsichore, 
I seek in this great hall, 

But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved 
of you all. 

I seek her from afar. 

I come from temples where her altars are, 

From groves that bear her name, 

Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial 

flame, 
And cymbals struck on high and strident faces 
Obstreperous in her praise 
71 



ODE TO SILENCE 

They neither love nor know, 

A goddess of gone days, 

Departed long ago, 

Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes 

Of her old sanctuary, 

A deity obscure and legendary, 

Of whom there now remains, 

For sages to decipher and priests to garble, 

Only and for a little while her letters wedged 
in marble, 

Which even now, behold, the friendly mum- 
bling rain erases, 

And the inarticulate snow, 

Leaving at last of her least signs and traces 

None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished 

from these places. 

72 



ODE TO SILENCE 

"She will love well," I said, 

"If love be of that heart inhabiter, 

The flowers of the dead; 

The red anemone that with no sound 

Moves in the wind, and from another wound 

That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth, 

That blossoms underground, 

And sallow poppies, will be dear to her. 

And will not Silence know 

In the black shade of what obsidian steep 

Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep? 

(Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home, 

Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago, 

Reluctant even as she, 

Undone Persephone, 

And even as she set out again to grow 

73 



ODE TO SILENCE 

In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspi- 
cious loam). 
She will love well," I said, 
1 ' The flowers of the dead ; 
Where dark Persephone the winter round, 
Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, 
Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily 
With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, 
Stares on the stagnant stream 
That moats the unequivocable battlements of 

Hell, 
There, there will she be found, 
She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music 
in a swound." 

1 ' I long for Silence as they long for breath 
74 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea; 

"What thing can be 

So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death 

What fury, what considerable rage, if only she, 

Upon whose icy breast, 

Unquestioned, uncaressed, 

One time I lay, 

And whom always I lack, 

Even to this day, 

Being by no means from that frigid bosom 

weaned away, 
If only she therewith be given me back ? ■ ' 

I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth, 
Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell, 
And in among the bloodless everywhere 

75 



ODE TO SILENCE 

I sought her, but the air, 

Breathed many times and spent, 

Was fretful with a whispering discontent, 

And questioning me, importuning me to tell 

Some slightest tidings of the light of day they 

know no more, 
Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with 

me where I went. 
I paused at every grievous door, 
And harked a moment, holding up my hand,— 

and for a space 
A hush was on them, while they watched my 

face; 
And then they fell a-whispering as before; 
So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing 

she was not there. 

76 



ODE TO SILENCE 

I sought her, too, 

Among the upper gods, although I knew 

She was not like to be where feasting is, 

Nor near to Heaven's lord, 

Being a thing abhorred 

And shunned of him, although a child of his, 

(Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not 

breath, 
Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a 

dream of Death). 
Fearing to pass unvisited some place 
And later learn, too late, how all the while, 
With her still face, 
She had been standing there and seen me pass, 

without a smile, 

I sought her even to the sagging board whereat 

77 



ODE TO SILENCE 

The stout immortals sat; 
But such a laughter shook the mighty hall 
No one could hear me say : 
Had she been seen upon the Hill that day? 
And no one knew at all 

How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and 
went away. 

There is a garden lying in a lull 

Between the mountains and the mountainous sea 

I know not where, but which a dream diurnal 

Paints on my lids a moment till the hull 

Be lifted from the kernel 

And Slumber fed to me. 

Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene, 

Though it would seem a ruined place and after 

78 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Your lichenoid heart, being full 

Of broken columns, caryatides 

Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on 

their jointless knees, 
And urns funereal altered into dust 
Minuter than the ashes of the dead, 
And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust, 
Dripping itself in marble wax on what was 

once the bed 
Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now 

is dust instead. 

There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria 
Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall, 
And the wide crannies quicken with bright 
weeds ; 

79 



ODE TO SILENCE 

There dumbly like a worm all day the still 

white orchid feeds; 
But never an echo of your daughters' laughter 
Is there, nor any sign of you at all 
Swells fungous from the the rotten bough, grey 

mother of Pieria! 

Only her shadow once upon a stone 
I saw, — and, lo, the shadow and the garden, 
too, were gone. 

I tell you you have done her body an ill, 
You chatterers, you noisy crew ! 
She is not anywhere! 
I sought her in deep Hell; 
And through the world as well ; 
I thought of Heaven and I sought her there; 
80 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Above nor under ground 

Is Silence to be found, 

That was the very warp and woof of you, 

Lovely before your songs began and after they 

were through ! 
Oh, say if on this hill 

Somewhere your sister's body lies in death, 
So I may follow there, and make a wreath 
Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast 
Shall lie till age has withered them ! 

(Ah, sweetly from the rest 
I see 

Turn and consider me 
Compassionate Euterpe ! ) 
' ' There is a gate beyond the gate of Death, 

81 



ODE TO SILENCE 

Beyond the gate of everlasting Life, 

Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she 

saith, 
"Whereon but to believe is horror! 
Whereon to meditate engendereth 
Even in deathless spirits such as I 
A tumult in the breath, 
A chilling of the inexhaustible blood 
Even in my veins that never will be dry, 
And in the austere, divine monotony 
That is my being, the madness of an unaccus- 
tomed mood. 

This is her province whom you lack and seek ; 
And seek her not elsewhere. 
Hell is a thoroughfare 

82 



ODE TO SILENCE 

For pilgrims, — Herakles, 

And he that loved Euridice too well, 

Have walked therein ; and many more than these ; 

And witnessed the desire and the despair 

Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for 

the air; 
You, too, have entered Hell, 
And issued thence ; but thence whereof I speak 
None has returned; — for thither fury brings 
Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before 

all things. 
Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is 

there." 

Oh, radiant Song ! Oh, gracious Memory ! 
Be long upon this height 

83 



ODE TO SILENCE 

I shall not climb again ! 

I know the way you mean, — the little night, 

And the long empty day, — never to see 

Again the angry light, 

Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain ! 

Ah, but she, 

Your other sister and my other soul, 

She shall again be mine ; 

And I shall drink her from a silver bowl, 

A chilly thin green wine, 

Not bitter to the taste, 

Not sweet, 

Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine, 

To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth — 

But savoring faintly of the acid earth, 

84 



ODE TO SILENCE 

And trod by pensive feet 
From perfect clusters ripened without haste 
Out of the urgent heat 
In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight 
under the odorous vine. 

Lift up your lyres ! Sing on ! 
But as for me, I seek your sister whither she 
is gone. 



85 



MEMORIAL TO D. C. 

[VASSAR COLLEGE, I918] 



Oh, loveliest throat of all sweet throats, 
Where now no more the music is, 

With hands that wrote you little notes 
I write you little elegies! 



88 



EPITAPH 

Heap not on this mound 
Roses that she loved so well; 

Why bewilder her with roses, 
That she cannot see or smell 1 

She is happy where she lies 

With the dust upon her eyes. 



89 



PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE 

Be to her, Persephone, 

All the things I might not be; 

Take her head upon your knee. 

She that was so proud and wild, 

Flippant, arrogant and free, 

She that had no need of me, 

Is a little lonely child 

Lost in Hell, — Persephone, 

Take her head upon your knee; 

Say to her, "My dear, my dear, 

It is not so dreadful here." 



90 



CHORUS 

Give away her gowns, 
Give away her shoes; 
She has no more use 
For her fragrant gowns ; 
Take them all down, 
Blue, green, blue, 
Lilac, pink, blue, 
From their padded hangers ; 
She will dance no more 
In her narrow shoes; 
Sweep her narrow shoes 
From the closet floor. 
91 



ELEGY 

Let them bury your big eyes 
In the secret earth securely, 
Your thin fingers, and your fair, 
Soft, indefinite-colored hair, — 
All of these in some way, surely, 
From the secret earth shall rise; 
Not for these I sit and stare, 
Broken and bereft completely; 
Your young flesh that sat so neatly 
On your little bones will sweetly 
Blossom in the air. 

But your voice, — never the rushing 
Of a river underground, 



ELEGY 

Not the rising of the wind 
In the trees before the rain, 
Not the woodcock's watery call, 
Not the note the white-throat utters, 
Not the feet of children pushing 
Yellow leaves along the gutters 
In the blue and bitter fall, 
Shall content my musing mind 
For the beauty of that sound 
That in no new way at all 
Ever will be heard again. 

Sweetly through the sappy stalk 
Of the vigorous weed, 
Holding all it held before, 
Cherished by the faithful sun, 

93 



ELEGY 

On and on eternally 

Shall your altered fluid run, 

Bud and bloom and go to seed; 

But your singing days are done; 

But the music of your talk 

Never shall the chemistry 

Of the secret earth restore. 

All your lovely words are spoken. 

Once the ivory box is broken, 

Beats the golden bird no more. 



94 



DIRGE 

Boys and girls that held her dear, 

Do your weeping now; 
All you loved of her lies here. 

Brought to earth the arrogant brow, 

And the withering tongue 
Chastened ; do your weeping now. 

Sing whatever songs are sung, 

Wind whatever wreath, 
For a playmate perished young, 

For a spirit spent in death. 
Boys and girls that held her dear, 
All you loved of her lies here. 
95 



SONNETS 



We talk of taxes, and I call you friend; 
Well, such you are, — but well enough we know 
How thick about us root, how rankly grow 
Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend, 
That flourish through neglect, and soon must send 
Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow 
Our steady senses ; how such matters go 
We are aware, and how such matters end. 
Yet shall be told no meagre passion here; 
With lovers such as we f orevermore 
Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere 
Eeceives the Table's ruin through her door, 
Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear, 
Lets fall the colored book upon the floor. 

99 



II 

Into the golden vessel of great song 
Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast 
Let other lovers lie, in love and rest; 
Not we, — articulate, so, but with the tongue 
Of all the world: the churning blood, the long 
Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed 
Sharply together upon the escaping guest, 
The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong. 
Longing alone is singer to the lute ; 
Let still on nettles in the open sigh 
The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute 
As any man, and love be far and high, 
That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit 
Found on the ground by every passer-by. 
100 



Ill 

Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter 
We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove, 
Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after 
The launching of the colored moths of Love. 
Love's proper myrtle and his mother's zone 
We bound about our irreligious brows, 
And fettered him with garlands of our own, 
And spread a banquet in his frugal house. 
Not yet the god has spoken ; but I fear 
Though we should break our bodies in his flame, 
And pour our blood upon his altar, here 
Henceforward is a grove without a name, 
A pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan, 
Whence flee forever a woman and a man. 

101 



IV 

Only until this cigarette is ended, 

A little moment at the end of all, 

While on the floor the quiet ashes fall, 

And in the firelight to a lance extended, 

Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended, 

The broken shadow dances on the wall, 

I will permit my memory to recall 

The vision of you, by all my dreams attended. 

And then adieu, — farewell! — the dream is done. 

Yours is a face of which I can forget 

The color and the features, every one, 

The words not ever, and the smiles not yet; 

But in your day this moment is the sun 

Upon a hill, after the sun has set. 

102 



V 

Once more into my arid days like dew, 
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound 
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, 
A treacherous messenger, the thought of you 
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew 
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found 
Long since to be but just one other mound 
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew. 
And once again, and wiser in no wise, 
I chase your colored phantom on the air, 
And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise 
And stumble pitifully on to where, 
Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes, 
Once more I clasp, — and there is nothing there. 

103 



VI 

No rose that in a garden ever grew, 

In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine, 

Though buried under centuries of fine 

Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew 

Forever, and forever lost from view, 

But must again in fragrance rich as wine 

The grey aisles of the air incarnadine 

When the old summers surge into a new. 

Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart," 

'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear, 

'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece ; 

And thus as well my love must lose some part 

Of what it is, had Helen been less fair, 

Or perished young, or stayed at home in Greece. 

104 



VII 

When I too long have looked upon your face, 
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured 
Save by the mists of brightness has its place, 
And terrible beauty not to be endured, 
I turn away reluctant from your light, 
And stand irresolute, a mind undone, 
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight 
From having looked too long upon the sun. 
Then is my daily life a narrow room 
In which a little while, uncertainly, 
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom, 
Among familiar things grown strange to me 
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark, 
Till I become accustomed to the dark. 

105 



VIII 

And you as well must die, beloved dust, 
And all your beauty stand you in no stead; 
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, 
This body of flame and steel, before the gust 
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, 
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead 
Than the first leaf that fell, — this wonder fled, 
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost. 
Nor shall my love avail you in your hour. 
In spite of all my love, you will arise 
Upon that day and wander down the air 
Obscurely as the unattended flower, 
It mattering not how beautiful you were, 
Or how beloved above all else that dies. 
106 



IX 

Let you not say of me when I am old, 

In pretty worship of my withered hands 

Forgetting who I am, and how the sands 

Of such a life as mine run red and gold 

Even to the ultimate sifting dust, "Behold, 

Here walketh passionless age ! ' ' — for there expands. 

A curious superstition in these lands, 

And by its leave some weightless tales are told. 

In me no lenten wicks watch out the night; 

I am the booth where Folly holds her fair; 

Impious no less in ruin than in strength, 

When I lie crumbled to the earth at length, 

Let you not say, "Upon this reverend site 

The righteous groaned and beat their breasts in 

prayer. ' ' 

107 



Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this : 

How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, 

More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, 

And make you old, and leave me in my prime? 

How you and I, who scale together yet 

A little while the sweet, immortal height 

No pilgrim may remember or forget, 

As sure as the world turns, some granite night 

Shall lie awake and know the gracious flame 

Gone out forever on the mutual stone ; 

And call to mind that on the day you came 

I was a child, and you a hero grown? — 

And the night pass, and the strange morning break 

Upon our anguish for each other's sake! 

108 



XI 

As to some lovely temple, tenantless 
Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass, 
Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass 
Grown up between the stones, yet from excess 
Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness, 
The worshiper returns, and those who pass 
Marvel him crying on a name that was, — 
So is it now with me in my distress. 
Your body was a temple to Delight; 
Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled, 
Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move; 
Here might I hope to find you day or night, 
And here I come to look for you, my love, 
Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead. 

109 



XII 

Cherish you then the hope I shall forget 
At length, my lord, Pieria? — put away 
For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay, 
These mortal bones against my body set, 
For all the puny fever and frail sweat 
Of human love, — renounce for these, I say, 
The Singing Mountain's memory, and betray 
The silent lyre that hangs upon me yet ? 
Ah, but indeed, some day shall you awake, 
Rather, from dreams of me, that at your side 
So many nights, a lover and a bride, 
But stern in my soul's chastity, have lain, 
To walk the world forever for my sake, 
And in each chamber find me gone again ! 

110 

&77-5 



N 



